Disclaimer: I don't really have much of a stake in ethereum, although I made some money off of it during the craziness last month (I cashed out when early warnings about the DAO hit hn, and bough back in when it was at the bottom, and cashed out again)
> I'm not sure how anyone could have any confidence in this system after that.
I think the situation is the opposite. After the DAO there were broad calls criticising the lack of leadership, criticism about decentralized/consensus decisionmaking, and comparisons with the broader economy and how the Fed can orchestrate a bailout (and why that's better - in the eyes of the critics). In a way, through consensus with this hard fork the Ethereum stakeholders squared the circle - orchestrating a bailout with majority assent (and if anyone didn't like it they were free to leave). I'm not going to pass judgement on whether or not that is a good precedent to set (or whether a turing complete blockchain - or the EVM implementation in particular - is a good idea in the long-term), but if anything the decisiveness of action should give more confidence in the short-term.
> I'm not sure how anyone could have any confidence in this system after that.
I think the situation is the opposite. After the DAO there were broad calls criticising the lack of leadership, criticism about decentralized/consensus decisionmaking, and comparisons with the broader economy and how the Fed can orchestrate a bailout (and why that's better - in the eyes of the critics). In a way, through consensus with this hard fork the Ethereum stakeholders squared the circle - orchestrating a bailout with majority assent (and if anyone didn't like it they were free to leave). I'm not going to pass judgement on whether or not that is a good precedent to set (or whether a turing complete blockchain - or the EVM implementation in particular - is a good idea in the long-term), but if anything the decisiveness of action should give more confidence in the short-term.